Tainted Bastard (Tainted Knights Book 4)

by Terri Anne Browning

  “Oh, no pressure,” London grumbled as she fluffed up her hair one last time. “Come hang out with a rock legend and his goddess wife.”

  “She is hot,” Aubree agreed. “It’s those eyes, man.”

  “I knew it wouldn’t be long before Harris was introducing me to his parents,” Peyton gushed from the couch. “Things are getting serious with us. Last week he even said he was thinking of extending our contract if we were up for that. It’s totally because he wants to keep me around. He’s scared it will ruin things between us if we don’t.”

  “Good for you two,” Genesis told her with a tight smile, then rolled her eyes when Peyton turned her back.

  We all knew Peyton was full of shit. There was nothing going on between those two. Harris had taken us to a few parties, helping us get an in with the right people. He was a decent guy, and he wanted to help us as much as possible, as per our contract. But he could barely tolerate Peyton.

  I was a little worried about her, actually. The chick was delusional about her “relationship” with our boss. Unhinged, even. She was going to get hurt and ruin things for us if she wasn’t careful.

  After changing out of our sweaty clothes and rehydrating, we climbed the stairs to do as Harris instructed. I was tired, not up for hanging out with anyone, least of all famous people. But this was part of the job and how we would get to where we needed to be.

  The VIP floor seemed to be overflowing with people, some of them stopping to tell us how much they’d enjoyed our set. I stayed in the back of the group like always, not wanting to be pulled into conversation with anyone. Like they always did, my soul sisters drew the attention on to themselves whenever someone tried to speak to me, knowing how uncomfortable I was. I kept my head down, avoiding eye contact with everyone.

  Finally, we reached the area in the back where Harris normally sat to entertain guests. An older version of him sat across from our boss, his hair pulled up into a man bun. The man might have been heading toward fifty, but he was still sexy as hell. Long and lean, with just a few strands of gray mixed in with his dark hair. Laugh lines around his eyes told me he had a happy life.

  His hand was draped over the back of the couch, his fingers playing with his wife’s long, dark hair. Natalie Cutter was considerably younger than her husband, but the way she looked up at him spoke of how much she loved him. The woman was beautiful with her elfin facial features and blue-gray eyes that reminded me of her rocker brothers. She was the sister of two of the members of Demon’s Wings, but she was famous in her own right as one of Emmie Armstrong’s business partners.

  Seeing us coming, Harris and his father stood. “Dad, you remember the Blonde Bombshells? Genesis, London, Aubree, and Roanna.” His eyes turned colder. “And Peyton.”

  “Mr. Cutter,” Peyton cooed, shaking the man’s hand. “It’s so good to finally meet you and your wife.” She smiled adoringly down at Natalie. “I’ve been begging this guy to introduce us for weeks now.”

  The rocker and his wife shared a look, amusement clearly on their faces. “Um, yeah, good to meet you too… Peyton, was it?” Devlin said, his dimples popping as he pulled his hand free.

  “Yes. Peyton.” He started to sit, but Peyton slipped into his seat. “I would love to have lunch with you one day, Mrs. Cutter. Maybe you could tell me all about how Harris was as a boy.”

  Natalie stood, shaking her head at the pest the chick was becoming. “Sorry. I have a busy schedule for the next few weeks.” She stood on tiptoe and kissed her stepson’s cheek. “Thanks for inviting us out tonight, sweetheart. But your sister has been blowing up my phone all evening, asking when we are going to pick her up from Shane’s house. Apparently, she’s had a disagreement with Violet and doesn’t want to spend the night, after all.”

  “Let me guess.” Harris’s face tightened. “Luca and Lyric had something to do with it?”

  Natalie forced a smile. “Probably.” Turning to us, she held out her hand, shaking each of ours, with the exception of Peyton’s. “Ladies, your show tonight was amazing. We really enjoyed ourselves, didn’t we, Dev?”

  “Haven’t heard a set that tight in forever,” the rock god assured us before settling his gaze on me. “Girl, those lungs of yours are killer.”

  Pleasure filled me at the same time I clammed up. I knew there was no danger from this man, but I couldn’t seem to get my tongue to unglue itself from the roof of my mouth.

  “Thanks, man,” Aubree told him when I was unable to speak. “We’re proud of our little Ro-Ro.”

  I shot her a look of thanks, and she squeezed my hand.

  “I need to bring Annabelle in the next time she and Z are in town,” Natalie told us, speaking of the third partner in her business with Emmie Armstrong. “That should be in a few weeks. We’ll talk again later.”

  With a wave, the couple left, and I stood there shaking from the possible implications of what she’d just said. I didn’t want to get my hopes up, didn’t even want to let myself think about them, but if Natalie wanted to bring her other partner in to listen to us perform, maybe she wanted to work with us.

  Having Natalie Cutter as our manager was just as good as having Emmie. The redhead had trained Natalie herself, everyone knew that. And once Emmie’s business had become more stable, she brought her pseudo-sister-in-law in as a partner with her and Annabelle Brockman.

  London and Genesis must have thought the same thing I was thinking, because I heard them both give a quiet squeal from either side of me. Aubree, never one to beat around the bush, confronted Harris. “Does that mean—”

  He smiled but shook his head, cutting her off. “It doesn’t mean anything right now. But if Annabelle likes what she hears, then the two of them can bring you on with a vote. Emmie wouldn’t have a choice in the matter.”

  “Oh my fucking God!” London whispered.

  “But regardless of what they do, I would still like to extend your contract here, if that’s something you want to do. The crowd every Thursday night only gets bigger and bigger. You’re developing a following, and I think it would benefit all of us in the long run.”

  Peyton shot us an “I told you so” look, which we all tried not to snicker at. Here the guy was trying to talk business, and all she heard was “Stay on, I love you, I can’t live without you, don’t leave me.” Bitch was deranged.

  “Think it over, and we can revisit before the contract is up to confirm what you want to do.”

  “Harris!” I lifted my eyes to find Kin Montez practically skipping toward us, an envelope in her hand. She smiled at us, giving a small wave as she pushed the envelope against his chest. “There. Now you can’t say I didn’t invite you.”

  “To what?” he asked, his voice dry.

  “My graduation.”

  It was curious how his face tightened and there was a flash of intense agony in his eyes before he masked it. Why this girl’s high school graduation would cause him pain was beyond me, but I wasn’t about to pry.

  “And…” Kin paused for half a second before continuing. “Well, Jace and Angie are giving me…us…a graduation party at my apartment. You’re not allowed to say no.”

  He was staring down at the invitation in his hands now, his jaw tense, his throat bobbing as he swallowed. “Kin, I don’t want to ruin your graduation. Or hers.”

  “Then come,” she urged. “You’ll never know what will happen if you don’t show up. It’s been months, Harris. You two should talk.”

  “Kin,” he groaned her name, slapping the envelope against his thigh. “You don’t know what you’re screwing around with.”

  “Sure, I do. I was there, remember?” She hugged him then quickly stepped back. “You have to come to both the graduation and the party. Relax. It’s still a few weeks away. You have plenty of time to work up the nerve to see Lucy.”

  Turning around, she faced us, effortlessly cutting off the conversation the two of them were having while we shamelessly listened in. “Sorry I missed the show tonight. When my best
friend comes to town, I’ll drag her sexy ass down here so she can soak up the kick-ass girl power with me. In the meantime, here.” She pulled something from her back jeans pocket and pushed it into London’s hand, but her eyes were on me. “Free of charge. Just remember me when your record label is looking for songs to have you bitches record once you hit it big.”

  London made a choking sound when she looked down at the sheet of paper in her hands. “You wrote us a song?”

  “Looks like it. I wrote it, but I didn’t think it would suit Jace’s voice. Then I thought of Roanna. So it’s yours. Let me know if you have any questions about tempos. But in my head, it’s on the sultry side.”

  “Noted.” London embraced her. “Thank you for this. We’ll work on it and maybe play it next week if possible.”

  “No rush, but I am excited to hear it.”

  London gave the song to me, and I glanced over the words. “Holy shit, this is sexual as hell, Kin.”

  She laughed. “It may have been written during some postcoital euphoria.”

  Reading some of the lyrics had my hands shaking a little, but I pasted on a smile. How the hell was I going to sing this song? I didn’t have a clue, but I would do my best. This song was perfect, and I could already foresee it turning into a crowd favorite.

  I was just going to have to suck it up and find a way to deal.

  Chapter 4

  Sin

  Tossing my towel on top of my gym bag, I squinted at Gray, who was just coming out of the showers, whistling. The asshole was only weeks away from having Kassa coming to live with him, and he was both happy and edgy. I didn’t trust that combination coming from my best friend. He was an unpredictable motherfucker when he was like that.

  “He scares the piss out of me when he’s like this,” Kale muttered a few feet away, where he was rubbing his hair dry with his own towel. “One second, he’s on top of the world. The next, he is ready to kill someone for looking at him the wrong way.”

  “I think we will all be happier once Kassa is living out here,” I told him, pulling out a fresh T-shirt from my locker.

  “Amen, brother,” Kale groaned.

  “We going to First Bass tonight or not?” Gray asked, opening his locker.

  “It’s Thursday. You know Sin is going,” Kale said with a laugh. “He’s going to go watch the Blondes and then take some chick home to fuck his witch out of his system.”

  I flipped him off, but I had no real defense. For the last six weeks, that was exactly what I’d been doing. Roanna, with her hypnotic voice and incomparable beauty, was driving me fucking crazy. She was the one I wanted, but every time I tried to get near her, she seemed to turn to stone before my eyes. Warning bells were going off left and right where she was concerned, but she wouldn’t even talk to me.

  I left the club every Thursday night pissed and disappointed, and I ended up taking out my frustration with some random hookup whose face I could never remember the next day. It was twisted and sick, but I was trying to fuck Roanna out of my system.

  The real problem was that it wasn’t working. She was still all I could think about, and I was starting to come to the realization there weren’t enough pussies in the world for me to get her out of my head.

  “I’m down with going to the club,” Gray announced. “I could go for a few beers and a blow job tonight.”

  “You and Jace giving Kas a welcome home party?” Kale asked as we walked into First Bass a while later.

  “She told us she doesn’t want one. I’ll probably take her out to dinner and bring her by the club. Whatever she wants to do is fine with me.”

  We walked over to the bar and ordered beers. Nate placed the brown bottles in front of us before getting drinks for the soccer player and his wife beside us. Kale paused to talk to the couple, but I was already moving toward the balcony that overlooked the first floor.

  It was almost time for the Blonde Bombshells to take the stage. My fingers tightened around the bottle in my hand, fighting the need to see Roanna. My ADHD gave me an addictive personality. All my life, I’d struggled with this side of myself, medicating myself just so I could stay focused. But the pills didn’t stop the cravings when I grew too attached to something—or in this case, someone.

  I couldn’t let her have that much control over me, though. Couldn’t give in to these mind-bending cravings that made me want to just be in the same damn room with her. It was a sickness that was going to destroy my sanity if I wasn’t careful. It was what fucked up my dad, and I wasn’t about to let it happen to me.

  Yet, even though I told myself I wasn’t going to let this newfound addiction take hold, I couldn’t seem to make myself stay away from First Bass every Thursday night. I had work tomorrow night, should have been home getting some sleep. But instead, I was there impatiently waiting to see her face so I could have my next fix.

  “Figured I’d find your ass here tonight,” Cash said as he came up beside me, sipping on a glass of whiskey.

  I shot him a glare but turned my attention back to the empty stage below. “Did you need something?”

  “Just some stoic company. I was bored at home, figured I would come drink with your broodiness for a while.”

  “Kale and Gray are over at the bar. Go hang out with them,” I told him, not wanting anything to distract me from the band’s set.

  “Gray’s in one of his moods tonight. I’d rather not get punched in the face. Did you see how he rearranged that one dude’s face last week? Just for getting in his way. Yeah, no thanks, bro. I like my pretty face just the way it is.”

  I grunted. “We will all be happier once Kas is out here with him.”

  “But will she be with him?” Cash asked the million-dollar question.

  “If he’s smart, he will lock her down fast.” But Gray wasn’t particularly smart when it came to Kassa. He’d been fighting his feelings for her a lot longer than he probably realized. I doubted he would stop just because she was suddenly living under the same roof with him once again. The dumbass.

  Below, the lights were starting to dim, and I watched in the near-darkness as the band took the stage moments before the spotlights were turned on, showcasing the beautiful blonde front and center. I tuned Cash out, mesmerized by the smile on Roanna’s face. It would be gone the instant she left that stage, so I needed to soak up every moment of it now.

  The air in my lungs felt like it was being vacuumed out as the first lyrics of the song filled the club. In the past few weeks, I’d learned their setlist fairly well. They threw in a few different songs to change things up but mostly kept to the crowd favorites. My fingers tapped on the banister, keeping beat with U2’s “With or Without You.” I was a fan of the Irish band’s song before, but hearing those lyrics come from Roanna’s mouth only made me love it more.

  Seamlessly, the first song went straight into the second. Another cover, “Get Lucky,” which had a pop version on the radio a while back. But Roanna turned it into a sultry rock song that had men and women alike salivating over the gorgeous Blonde. My cock throbbed and strained against the confines of my clothing as she played up to the crowd, and I was lost in my own fantasyland, imagining all the dirty things I wanted to do with the sexy-as-fuck rocker.

  The next few songs were, thankfully, less sexual, and my body had the chance to cool down somewhat. Gray and Kale joined Cash and me at the balustrade for a few more songs. By the time Jace and Kin showed up, there was only time for one more song.

  If I’d been turned on by “Get Lucky,” it was nothing compared to how worked up I got with that final song. It wasn’t one I’d ever heard before, couldn’t place what band they were covering, but fuck, it was the most sexual song I’d ever heard. The lyrics were putting mental pictures in my head of Roanna doing exactly as she was promising with each word that left her luscious lips, making my cock ache like it never had before.

  Sweat dripped down my back, and I shifted from one foot to the other, trying in vain to find a position that didn’t
make my cock attempt to burst through my zipper and cripple me for life.

  The song wasn’t even over before I was on my way downstairs, headed for the green room to meet the band as soon as their set was over. A few people in the crowd recognized me as I navigated the masses and tried to talk to me. I brushed them off, in too much of a frenzy to get to Roanna to give a shit about anyone or anything.

  Two members of the security team stood outside the green room doors, a measure Harris added after a few fans tried to get back to see the band several weeks before. They recognized me and lifted their chins in acknowledgment, one of them opening the door for me.

  The room was vacant, which I knew it would be. I paced, waiting impatiently for them to get offstage. The room was a mess, but it was an organized kind of chaos, with clothes and makeup tossed on various flat surfaces and gym bags scattered on the floor. I recognized Roanna’s as the one she’d been sorting through one Thursday night when I’d come back to hang out with the band after one of their shows a few weeks before.

  It was a cute glittery pink-and-black bag from Victoria’s Secret. Jeans and a tank top were sticking out of the half-zipped bag, along with what looked like her bra and panties.

  “Fuck,” I groaned, stabbing my fingers through my hair in an attempt to keep myself from picking up her underwear and turning into a total skeeze.

  She had to go out with me tonight. I couldn’t handle not having the chance to touch her any longer. I needed to hear her voice as I sucked her nipples, and again while my tongue was deep between her killer legs. If I didn’t have her soon, I was going to implode with the need that was clawing at my insides.

  Several more minutes passed, and I knew they should have come back already. Unable to wait another minute to see Roanna, I went back out to see what was taking them so long.

  The two security guys were gone when I opened the door, and it took me a second to realize the noise that was suddenly assaulting my ears was coming from the direction of the stage. I took off running, knowing something must have happened to one of the Blondes. The clenching in my gut told me an overzealous fan must have gotten up onstage.